But it was so
by jadesfire22
Summary: When the fate of the galaxy depends on - not a blaster bolt, not a lightsaber blow - but just one strike of a dagger. A series of poems and one-shots about the death of Grand Admiral Thrawn from different perspectives. Please read and review!
1. Chapter 1

**Fill in the blank. **

**Rated K+ for a fairly abstract description of death. **

**Please don't sue me because...  
****I do not own Star Wars; Disney (!) does.  
****I do not own the character Mitth'raw'nuruodo or the events of _The Last Command _or the line "But it was so artistically done"; Timothy Zahn does.  
I do not own the line "and even stars go out," a reference to the _Revenge of the Sith_ novelization; Matthew Stover does.**

**I do not own a Star Destroyer; Thrawn does.  
****  
****REVISED: I do not own a Star Destroyer...YET. **

**Just kidding. **

**Read and review! (Hopefully positively, but constructive criticism is also appreciated, as long as it's tactful.)**

Choking still quiet  
Agonies throes of death  
You coldly watch yourself die as you watched others  
Exactly the same  
Symmetry

Pinned to the chair  
In which you masterfully plotted in in life  
Symmetry  
Transfixed by a spear of pain  
Like an insect  
Like how you looked on others  
Is your arrogance regretted  
Or justified in your last breaths?

Freeze  
For your final tableau  
You wouldn't miss this even in life  
Crimson floods over white  
The same red glow that dispassionately watched over all before  
But that is dead now  
As the white heat of the stars is suffused with red  
And even stars—  
And even stars go out  
And the light fades from your eyes

Is there regret?  
Is there sadness for a fallen hero  
Or a mastermind of risen ruthlessness  
Or is there only the intensity of a final image  
That deludes the mind into imagined passion?

Whatever the case,  
The irony itself was beautiful.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note:

So, dear Reader, I thought I was done with this little poem...

But then I thought of a series of poems and one-shots from different perspectives. Thus, here is this ungainly wordy creature, _The Six Deaths of Grand Admiral Thrawn._ Wow, from that title you'd think I really hate him and this was a self-gratification, multiple murder fic. I just can't think of a better title, that's all.

The disclaimer from the last chapter applies. My status of not owning Star Wars has not changed, dear Reader.

Or the Star Destroyer.

(The $130 I saved up for it apparently wasn't enough for a down payment. [The dollars/credit exchange rate is really lousy right now.] So, I just bought some paint so I can Errant-Venture-ize my ship with my favorite color.

Of course, I now have 20 cans of lime green paint sitting in my room.

On second thought, I might actually need more than 20 cans for a whole Star Destroyer.

On third thought, this is way too long of an Author's Note...I think it'll just be its own chapter, randomly. I had so much gravitas and pathos planned! This just...kills it. Oh, well. Ignore this chapter, please, dear Reader. )


	3. Chapter 3

Ledge

**Please read and review!**

_[The rukh] was for all the world like an eagle, but one indeed of enormous size; so big in fact that its quills were twelve paces long and thick in proportion. And it is so strong that it will seize an elephant in its talons and carry him high into the air and drop him so that he is smashed to pieces._ -Marco Polo

_Nothing is as eloquent as nothing._ -David Mitchell

For the treachery of the Empire against the Noghri people. We were betrayed. We have been avenged."

My last words.

"But it was so..."

His.

I don't stick around to hear the rest of the muttering that comes out of his blood-bubbling throat, the last of his wretched coughing on the breath of life sprinting out of his chest like a kalla-bird, which once lived in the forests of Honoghr but is now extinct, dead as stone, dead as metal in space, dead as Thrawn.

My dark shape flies through the air, my shadow skimming over the floor. Almost exactly as I was in life. I was a shadow, but confined to the ground, as twisted as him. I was the crooked blur an inch behind him at every moment. The gray flash of death grabbing you, wrenching your limbs into contortions of death.

Before that, I was Rukh.

But a shadow has no time for self-reflection! Fly!

Slowly, it seems, faces contort into expressions of shock. Atoms slowly, microscopically shift inside the metal of the blade carving up space like hunters' kill. Imperials look over, stasis-frozen.

If I can just make it to the elevator...

It seems a ledge, a cliff. If I can soar over it, I have crossed a boundary. I can get there and out. I can propel myself to safety. I will be safe again, somehow.

Rukh!_ The matraikh chides me, as I come home from my first prey. _Why do you take so long in returning? _She looks warmly at me, pride fills her eyes. _Come on, your ceremony will start in no time! You must hurry!

I'll take that! _An Imperial accent clips out, swinging the carcass which I trail behind me off my shoulder, taking me by surprise in my youth and pride. The bored stormtrooper came planetside to rattle the cages of the natives, I supposed later. Taking a break, I later guessed. _

_I no longer care. _

_Peering up at the tall, lean figure, I scamper away towards the relative safety of the dessicated forest. Laughing, heavy footsteps follow me for half a minute. I jump over a log and into a clearing, seeming to hang in the air forever. The stormtrooper gives up soon, wheezing and chuckling at my stupidity. _

Now the stormtrooper, fragmented into many faces of ashen gray, continues his chase. I took down his master. I am a threat now, but still a shadow.

If I can just make it to the elevator shaft...

The officers are dead silent, not laughing. _Sobbing_, even, here and there.

_The matraikh is dead. Keening, we burn her body on a funeral pyre. Lugubrious howls rend the air. The lines of crooked spines bend almost to the ground in doubled-over agony._

_Several officers step in, naming a few individuals whose services are demanded by the lord of the Noghri. _

_They go unwillingly into the sunset, framed by the doorway and by the specters of Imperial officers. _

A few block my way; chop high, twist low, and their corpses drop away from me, falling miles through space to hit reality below.

I swell and run, untouchable, and a grove of shades falls around me.

But there are too many of them, and I am surrounded by a ring of enemies. Pain contorts the face of one. I can read his face: he is caught between killing this dire threat quickly and torturing it.

He chooses the second option.

He shoots me on moderate power, and a flash of red heat diffuses through my chest. I gasp and fall to the ground.

But he has no laughter, or words. "You...you..."

Pellaeon, whose voice I silenced minutes before the kill, notices me. Dignity forgotten for a millisecond (but it is enough), he runs over from the chaos of the retreat he is directing to witness my death. "Monster! You will..." he spits, and suddenly reins himself in. Addressing the officer, he says, "Very good. He will be held and tried."

"Tried, sir? But everyone saw...this is war!" The soldier's finger convulses on his trigger, and another flame of pain shoots through me, my arm this time.

"He _will be tried_," and there is a menace in those words I'd never heard before. "He will not be allowed to die for honor in his dramatic suicide mission! That's what he wants! I will not make him a martyr for this!" and suddenly he looks at me.

I stare back. The silence spreads. _These are my real last words. The nothingness of a bird in space. Quiet defiance._

Without warning, I jump up and run again, weakly, trailing tears of shadowy blood across the room.

If I can just make it to the elevator shaft...

But who am I kidding, I have no escape planned once I get there, but I just need to get there, if I can, I will have carried off the victory beyond the reach of Pellaeon's tears and trials, if I can make it off the ledge of the empty waiting shaft, and-

Fly.


	4. Chapter 4

**Please read and review! If you review, I will give you a prize...how about a free can of lime green paint? Haha, just kidding. **

**Note: If you haven't read Legacy of the Force, (or at least finished Revelation), don't read this? It ties in to Thrawn's death but is from a later perspective and has spoilers. **

**Written from Pellaeon's perspective. **

Pellaeon

_"History is on the move, Captain."_

Oh, so you're about to shoot me, are you?  
For Darth Caedus and his new Alliance?  
Sounds an awful lot like an empire  
To me. Rest a moment. Let me tell you  
About an empire, far worthier,  
But still it fell.

The great events of history do not  
Happen in neat clean pictures as though viewed  
Through the pristine lens of a holodoc  
Camera: they happen in the moments  
Between glances, in the spaces between  
Sight.

In the instance between reading, looking,  
And turning away, an empire fell.  
I'll never admit this fall to anyone,  
But there it is. It's gone. He's gone. We're gone.

Me, caught off guard, staring at the controls  
And suddenly shadows choke me on the floor  
I stagger up, but wildly off balance  
And my throbbing eye fixates on the red

Buttons of the holopad. One up, two left-  
Their locations fixed on my mind  
Indelibly, those odd last sights before

I see the real one. Well. I guess I don't  
Have to reiterate it, you've heard, you  
Know. Thrawn died. Stabbed in his chair. Rukh did it.

Maybe, just maybe, if I'd gotten up  
One second faster-was that all between  
Him and life? But the core of common sense within me  
Tells me I couldn't stop a battle-mad Noghri.  
So I float, out of free will and  
Out of responsibility, these days.

Maybe, just maybe, if I came up with  
Some brilliant plan-I should have learned  
Something after all those years listening  
To lectures on psychology, art, life,  
Strategy. But in the end, only one  
Lesson remained: Do not waste life lightly.

It wormed its way into my brain as, "Do  
Not trust yourself." It came out, of course.  
I had to lead lives and men every day,  
And, I guess, I did a fair job. But still-  
Departing worms of doubt left empty space  
In me, which fills with cold steel every day.

It takes work to coordinate the retreat.

It takes work to lead a dead Empire.

It takes work to forget the dead, much work.

It takes more to forget the dead you've killed.

I may have retreated and cut deals and  
Worked for a dishonorable peace, but  
I never wasted a life, spilled any  
Blood that pours down, stains corpses to the floor,  
Smiling, dead-both wrong in so many ways.

Young woman, history repeats itself.  
Always: one assassin, one victim, yet  
One onlooker, helpless for now, but there.  
Shadowy, rising up, these ones compose  
History's known annals and images.

Tahiri, who do you think watches you?  
So shoot me-I'd rather now than later-  
And scorch our indelible silhouettes  
Into the black canvas of time itself.


	5. Chapter 5

**I still don't own anything.**

**But good news today!**

**First, I was watching AotC on Spike and I think I saw some mini, Star-Destroyer-like thing in the background of the second-to-last scene. I bet, since it's smaller, it'll be cheaper! There's Star Destroyer hope once more!**

**And second, in Skyfall, there was a ship called the Chimaera (or at least I heard "Chimaera" when they said the name) and that made me awkwardly laugh in the middle of the theater for no apparent reason! "You know you're a Star Wars fan when..."**

**Please read and review! I would love to know what you think. And thank you so much to the people who have already sent me really nice reviews!**

**Okay, here's the next poem/one-shot/amorphous ungainly blob of words, written from Mara's perspective at the end of Vision of the Future. This is branching out a bit beyond Thrawn's literal death a bit. I ran out of perspectives, and since I promised six, I'm going to have to go with the death of Thrawn's clone. Pushing it, I know. And it's really more about Mara, so try it if you are a Mara Jade fan. **

**So, without further ado: **

**Inertia**

Okay. Hi.

Half-thoughts, half-impressions, half to myself, half to this recording.

This is Mara Jade.  
Soon to be: Mara Jade Skywalker.  
Soon to be: Jedi.

But even though I've sacrificed my ship, my symbol of an earlier, freer life,  
doubts still remain.  
They swirl around, coalescing in glistening tendrils,  
remnants of my days as Emperor's Hand,  
robbing, maiming, killing,  
dying.

But one current incident  
sort of solidifies these tendrils  
into icicles,  
fingers of stone,  
freezing over the comforting evanesence of the flow of the Force,  
poking uncertainties into my soft-set mind,  
causing the discomfort that leads to questioning,  
that,  
as even Luke must admit,  
leads to truth.

How and why did Thraawn die?

No-not the original Thrawn-  
I forget this is merely a recording,  
as I choke out dank dark ideas,  
possibly blasphemies,  
into the moist silence and  
crosshatched greenery of the Yavin forest,  
and that you can't hear the sighted spelling,  
see the inflections of my tone,  
pull the troubling ideas right out of my head without awkward translation into words-  
but the clone.  
The child, almost.

Luke and I had discussed. We had come to the agreement  
I thought was right.  
It contradicted my past,  
set a bright course for my future.  
We would save the clone.  
He had committed none of the sins of his father,  
was innocent  
as I hoped my new life as a Jedi would be.

A new life!  
(I mean the clone, of course.)  
Free of Imperial training, of Imperial staining, of Imperial personality draining.

I snort with my own sardonic drollery, but you don't realize  
quite how serious  
I am.

Saving the new life-the clone I mean-  
It would have been heroic.  
It would have been Jedi.  
It would have been good.

But Luke and I barely got out with our lives and were engaged.

Is that it? Is that all?

I feel a sense of seeping shame.  
Luke and I had discussed-before, I mean-  
of the _inconvenience_ ensuing if the clone were to survive.  
The trials and...things.

Did I cause this?  
Is that all the Force is?  
Some kind of hopped-up magical thinking of a lunatic  
three-year-old,  
whose darkest,  
most cowardly,  
_truest_ thoughts,  
are enacted?  
But whose purest, highest thoughts rise to the top,  
and, a surface veneer of pond scum, are skimmed off?

Or were the waters  
that drenched and carried away the clone  
like so much detritus  
just another weapon carried along by the greater galactic tide of the Force  
borne  
in the feeble, emaciated hands of the insane,  
Dark-Side-drenched ancient in my subconscious?  
(for I know he's there)

I still have doubts about this light side.  
Why would the Force let an innocent die?  
And not in the hands of dictators like Palpatine  
(for that happens every day,  
such evil beings wrest control of the Force,  
tearing its fabric)  
but in front of these very eyes,  
these very lips,  
now whispering a litany of confused angst,  
then choking on waves, muddy, watery specks  
which seemed only a brute force-Force?  
incorporeal, timeless  
in the darkness.

_But_  
(I've come this far already)  
_inertia_  
(I still love Luke)  
_carries_  
(I've already made sacrifices)  
_me_  
(I've cast off the Emperor's shadow)  
_the_  
(I can work these issues out later)  
_final_  
(I've seen evil before and not faltered)  
_few_  
(I've dealt with impersonal killers-what's one more, even if the murderer is life itself?)  
_steps_  
(I know, maybe this is my true last challenge)  
_towards_  
(I can do this)  
_the_  
(I will cause more good to appear; that will be my purpose)  
_light._

And I wonder, is inertia all that causes the universe to turn on its axis?

Like the inertia and momentum possessed by a raging turrent of frigid water rushing to gag and silence an innocent child knowing nothing dying as he lived in the dark?


	6. Chapter 6

**Hello all! It is the first of the New Year, and sadly, Darth Real Life beckons. Making my quest to acquire a Star Destroyer even more urgent, since I could conceivably use it to escape DRL. Oh well.**

** But, before I fall into DRL's evil clutches once more, I am finishing off this poetry collection...(Wow, does that sound pretentious and cheesy, a Star Wars poetry collection)...poetry collection-ish thingie. (All better!)**

**Also, one of my New Year's resolutions was to finish things. So here we are.**

**This is the second-to-last poem. **

**This is from Maris' perspective, reflecting on her love for Thrawn and the death of his noble self. Or at least, the death of her perception of his noble self. I apologize for the fluff. It's not usually my style, so I HEREBY BLAME THE FANGIRL MUSE. And Maris, of course. **

**Outbound Flight spoilers ahead. **

**I still don't own anything. This is just for fun.**

**Here goes nothing.**

Flame

i.

They say you always remember  
the first time you meet  
someone you-  
oh, well, why not admit it-  
love

but I didn't.

ii.

Escaping from the grasping,  
greedy criminality of a Hutt,  
lurching towards the edges of known space,  
leaning towards the fringes of a rising panic,  
I was just relieved when  
his ship showed up  
to get them off our backs.

I barely noticed him at first.  
But over time his voice edged its way  
into my consciousness,  
very cultured, smooth,  
bridging oceans of language like a glacial stream  
and biting off crisp consonants like  
small waterfalls  
that made my heart skip a beat  
when I fell over them.

In isolation,  
waiting,  
captured with nothing really to do,  
my mind spun fantastical conversations between us  
and replayed the few remarks he had said,  
variations on a theme of everyday language,  
clutching at stray glances

And then he showed up  
and offered to teach Cheunh  
and I had more remarks from him than my mind  
could catalog and save for future use  
when I would spin alone in an abyss of stars  
with only Qennto's harsh exclamations for company.

iii.

not only did I barely notice him,  
I barely noticed what was happening to me.

Get captured by alien force,  
imprisoned for months,  
immediately fall in love with alien commander.

How stupid, Maris.

But  
Love is not blind;  
love is solipsism.  
it is the shutdown of all senses  
and the belief that you create your love  
and the inability to see its surroundings.  
it is the belief that your love defines the universe.

it is shooting through hyperspace and seeing the tiny colorless spot  
at the end of that funnel of fluctuating blue  
it is building a landspeeder from scraps at the age of 15  
and admiring its hastily sketched, rugged grey lines  
until you see it next to real ones  
it is learning something useless but obscure,  
a construct of the mind and society,  
and imparting it to others  
it is drawing a picture that exists only in your head  
it is all of that and more.

iv.

So we talked Cheunh and Basic in flowing vines  
of words growing.  
He admired my facility with the language  
(although he picked up Basic much quicker)  
and said I had a voice like fire.  
When I asked him to explain,  
he said that my burning enthusiasm fueled my language  
and slightly changed the inflections of every word I spoke.  
But a backwards fire,  
first an ash of incomprehensibility,  
then intangible fluctuation,  
then crisp passion.  
It was funny that I should sound like that,  
he said in a rare moment of tactlessness,  
because my eyes were so soft and blue, like limpid pools.  
Not that he had ever seen any springs rushing through green hills.  
Just from what I had told him.  
Voice of fire, eyes of water.  
I told him he was exactly the opposite.

like a reflection in water, or a shadow in the fire,

_we are mirrors then..._

v.

The things I saw with him!  
Slaves trapped in clear orbs  
limbs bound by transparisteel  
or, failing that  
material of sentient creation,  
by the eternity of space

Living reminders of the necessity of choice.  
Kill them to save them.  
No choice.  
No choice.

No! There was!

My faith in him died a little that day.  
But I chose  
chose  
to save him.

And not just for love.  
For proof.

He is not the only one  
who has ever performed plotting actions with hidden subtle meanings.

Those in love  
do this every day.

vi.

We left Csilla  
and I looked back, often.

I found out something from Car'das.  
Years, years later.  
Why didn't he tell me?

vii.

I run a smuggling organization now. Well, half-run, anyway.  
I'm more the power behind the leader,  
running around, fixing things, talking to people, getting things done.

So I won't explain how a certain piece of flimsi  
came into my possession  
which said something to the effect that  
Commander Mitth'raw'nuruodo  
destroyed Outbound Flight.

I determinedly strode-  
ran in a fluster-  
up to Car'das.  
I jabbed the flimsi twice  
with two fingers.  
It made a weak flapping sound.  
The beginning of the rustling of the gales of truth  
which would carry all papers away  
in their apocalyptic whirlwind.  
The strangely humble creaking of the gates of life  
opening to admit me  
for once.

Surprisingly weak gates,  
constructed of paper and a few lies and half-smiles.  
I could have broken through when I wished.

One flimsi, two eyes, two jabs, one word.  
"Explain."

Car'das took me aside  
(don't give me any of that fake smuggler charm)  
and said, Maris,  
he just wanted to shelter you.  
He said you were one of the few bright-eyed idealists left in the universe.  
And that he didn't want to crush you.  
Understand?

viii.

In any language, Car'das,  
Thrawn,  
whomever this pitiful explanation really originated from,  
that is semantics.  
Shame on you.

ix.

I thought a bit about it.

You said (back so long ago)  
that my passion fueled my voice  
like a fire.  
Idealism, then, was  
my coal  
glinting bright  
as any senator's starship and pacifist political agenda  
just buried under a layer of smuggler's grease.

But it had to die eventually  
for it shone with an oily greed  
that which I was trying to escape in the fringes of the galaxy in the first place  
Grasping at principles,  
trying to own the thoroughways of virtue  
and monopolize the right to be right.  
I had to live in the world eventually.

It had to die sometime.  
And it hung onto life like a sickly thing,  
because no one-not Thrawn, not Qennto, not Car'das-  
had the heart to put it down  
for the greater good  
just like those slaves were killed  
for the greater good,  
trapped in airless bubbles of time.

An unnatural lump of coal!

As crushing coal, buried with enough pressure,  
turns it into diamonds,  
If you had crushed my idealism,  
(and it was already buried enough)  
not felt the need to shelter me like a child,  
my passion could have survived,  
transforming into something  
maybe less utilitarian-  
for this coal keeps me afloat in a smuggler's organization-  
but priceless

glinting hard and reflecting the light of a sun  
from the void.

x.

and yes,  
that is semantics too.

One should never argue by metaphor.

xi.

I heard he was exiled.

I wonder what he has done now, if he has fallen further and further into darkness  
with no one to stop him.

I wonder where he is now.

xii.

One diamond  
shining in a wreath of smoke  
from coal pressed and pressed until it could burst  
and with a few drops of steam  
rolling down it like tears  
was never born.

Another one is dead.  
I saw him pristine as his voice  
cold and clear  
and he tried to look that way  
to please himself  
(his only concession to vanity; and he takes even more pride  
in the fact that it looks so humble)  
and to please me  
(and that's my only concession to vanity)  
but the fact is, he wasn't.

he lived, like the rest of us,  
in the hot and greasy boiler room of life  
with steam flying everywhere,  
not just settling around diamonds.

I don't know if he lost his virtue then  
if Mitth'raw'nuruodo died that day  
and became Thrawn of the empire  
(for, these years later after Car'das told me,  
I have heard,  
and barely let myself believe)  
or if my conception of him,  
that hard gem in my brain,  
was the only thing that perished  
in the glowing intense light of truth.

Coal, not quite pressed into diamonds.

Diamonds, pressed so hard they burst into tarnished ashes again.

From which a backwards fire will flame?


	7. Chapter 7

**Hi. So this is (maybe) my last poem for this series. I make no promises for the muse, though. More poems shall come!**

**I was listening to "This is Gallifrey" while I wrote it. So, I guess this is based on the mood of that song a bit. It's a bit Thrawn-esque at parts.**

**I own nothing as usual. And I give my sincerest thanks to those who do. Writing is really an amazing thing. (Really, listen to "This is Gallifrey." It makes me write sentimental things like this.)**

**After circling around through time a bit, I'm returning to what this was intended to be about the whole time: the death scene. Some first person Thrawn, but very very abstract.**

**As always, please read and review! Even if it's just :) or :( !**

**Finis**

_Thrawn: "It was my one failure, out on the Fringes. The one time when understanding a race's art gave me no insight at all into its psyche. At least not at the time. Now, I believe I'm finally beginning to understand them." _  
_Pellaeon: "I'm sure that will prove useful in the future." _  
_Thrawn: "I doubt it. I wound up destroying their world."_

-Heir to the Empire

Red crossing lines streak by vision  
The battle outside the windows  
Or just the deoxygenation of death?

It doesn't matter anymore  
Only a few moments left

The past returns within them  
A failure on the Rim rising unbidden  
The art spoke of darkness and death

Sculptures blackly writhing  
As hands shaking faintly  
On the arms of a glinting chair  
Blood dripping on the trembling fingers

Paintings three-dimensional  
With clouds streaked with light  
Serving to accentuate the darkness

And time delineated and marked into  
Death and death-not-yet  
A spot of red growing to engulf the nerves and heart of the galaxy

Pacing, fingers steepled wisely:  
"Judging on these patterns of influence,  
They will be either easy to defeat, fatalistic  
Or blackly foreboding spartan grimly fighting on.

Either one a primitive mindset,  
Fairly easy to defeat and manipulate."

There was no faith in their cold wire of their sculptures  
So the first option was chosen as the base for stratagem.  
They were fooled by it -completely- yet fought on.

So, theories, like light-footed  
Animals, gracefully spun and reshaped  
Themselves to the second option.

New theories, graceful ice-floating birds  
Shot down by a hunter's arrow  
Bleeding profusely under the raging stare of the dying sun

There was hope in them.  
No grim fate.  
And how could they coexist?  
The wholeness, the harmony, the death?  
Why?

_That is the wrong question. Perhaps what you should have asked is...how?_

Of all the things...that knowledge has not been mastered. Not yet.

_What do you mean, not yet? _  
_Death is merely a means to an end? _  
_For the goal of Imperial society, a new order _  
_You have believed in death and life's coexistence for years._

Not in the way they do.  
When I saw that species, graceful and avian  
As a beautifully planned strategy on the three-dimensional  
Warfield of the mind,

Feel the countdown of the turbolaser,  
See it in their minds and hearts,  
The green grinding of the preparation  
Reflected in their howling war cries,

In the last minute they stopped flight.

And for a second one green-skinned girl  
Took off her blank-faced helmet  
And just sat down and felt the grass beneath her.  
She had a look, a grin almost,  
Not sarcastically defeatist, cynical of death waiting its turn in line,  
As was expected, such-is-life, last-survivor-stand-and-fall  
But almost genuinely pleased about such a loss.

Nothing abstract, or intellectual, about it.  
No justification, no excuse become  
The cold stabbing metal of reality  
Burning through my heart.

_There is still a chance. _  
_Remember, there are only seconds left_  
_and eternities within them._

An attempt is made.

From across a room  
Intermittent with light and dark flashes  
From battles of reality and hallucination

That original sculpture of gloomy, turgid waters  
Roiling but floating above its platform  
Orderly, caged in the contained globe  
Catches his eye  
And the two fading black spheres meet

and smile.

The last sight of beauty he will ever know  
departs from his cracking sight  
Dead he lives and blinded he sees.

_But, he whispered, it was so artistically done._


End file.
